“What was that?” Emmanuel suddenly asked Lael while they’re following the wyverns. Lael turned his head to survey his surrounding but he didn’t see anything that’s suspicious.

“What are you talking about?” Lael asked, still confused

“There” Emmanuel pointed at the white wyvern that is in the front where Cellica’s group is staying.

“I felt a divine magic activating” Emmanuel pondered

“I see..should i check on them?” Lael suggested as he knew that Emmanuel’s senses regarding holy magic and divine magic are monstrous compared to other templars of the church.

“No..it would alert them. It was very faint but very pure, it’s like when a saintess uses her magic. I’m sure it’s not dangerous” Emmanuel replied as Lael shrugged

“You’re our leader, we just follow” Lael said with an uncaring tone.

“I’m not the leader. I’m only a high templar, our leader is in the very front” Emmanuel pointed in front of him as Lael squinted his eyes to see what he is pointing at but he can only see a distortion of space before vanishing.

“Who is that?” Lael asked

“The former rift hero, Sir Exael Pendral.” Emmanuel muttered

“What? The former rift hero? the one who got sealed inside the eternal tower spell by Astarte the eternal? How did he get out?” Lael whispered to make sure that the hero won’t hear them.

Astarte the eternal is a demon working for the axis of darkness and the right hand of the leader of this cult. With a curse of undying, no proper way has been found to kill it. After being sealed for a millennia before the eternal war, it used its undying curse and unlimited time to research sealing spells and magic. After hundreds of years, the demon become so proficient in sealing spells and anti-sealing spells. A lot of empires across the Aleria ignored the demon part of Astarte and just focused on its skill but to the dismay of others. It joined the axis of darkness for an unknown reason.

Now, 2 heroes, 3 SS-rank adventurers, 5 Radiant otherworlders were sealed by Astarte using its ominous spell called the binding of the tower which forces anyone to enter a never-ending tower full of monsters and beasts inside.

“He was exchanged for something by the church of light. I don’t know the details but the fact that the church of light allowed such a transaction to happen still baffles me.” Emmanuel whispered back to Lael

“He’s not like the hero we once knew, he changed and become more apathetic while being visually terrified every time the cult is mentioned” Emmanuel sighed

“What a sad fate” Lael gazes forward to only find that Exael’s tracks are gone.

“Where is he?” he immediately asked Emmanuel while looking around the surroundings.

Meanwhile in the edge of death’s crevice. Kyle noticed that a portal opened just beside him as he quickly activates his title. With a swift motion, a ragged long-haired young man wearing a white cloak with a red cross in the middle appeared with apathetic eyes as he gazed at everyone.

“Kill” he murmured like an undead trying to speak, his brown hair flew with the wind as his eyes glowed a bright red color. A rotting smell comes out of him as he moves slowly and sickly. His skin is wrapping his bones like he’s a dried-up corpse and his crooked yellow teeth keep muttering the word kill.

“Everyone disperse!” Kyle shouted as Exael vanished and appeared behind him. With the use of his bony hands, a large scratch emerged at Kyle’s back as he gritted his teeth and jump forwards while creating a space between them. Violet blood dripped from his back as Kyle cursed his luck.

With no hesitation, Isaac absorbed the violet blood from Kyle before creating 3 small blood swords and releasing them towards Exael. The three blood swords exploded but it missed as Exael was already gone. A sudden sound of a sword hitting a metal emerged from his side to find Aleena parrying Exael’s poisonous nails that were aimed for his hip. A swift five continuous strikes barred at Exael but he teleported away immediately. Still, Aleena’s impressive reaction time saved her from receiving a large gash in the back if not for her quick turning and parrying the sudden attack from behind.

With no delay, Alrich and Melissa charged at Exael furiously as they unleash a barrage of punches and kicks. Alrich’s fist is covered with a golden aura as every strike generates a blinding light while a red aura emerged in Melissa’s arms as the attack creates a large shockwave every time it hits Exael. To their dismay, every punch and attack was absorbed by a small portal as it misdirects everything away from Exael.

Still, Exael can’t teleport away while misdirecting every attack from Alrich and Melissa. Kyle noticed this as Exael didn’t move away despite receiving a barrage of attacks.

“All of you, continue attacking him. He’s undead so he will only move based on instinct” Kyle shouted before baring his spear at the undead Exael. He knows who Exael is but he doesn’t know why he’s attacking them. Still, hesitation can lead to demise. With a readying posture, he lunges forward before stabbing at Exael in high precision where his vitals would be. Still, it was misdirected.

“Also, don’t use any spells! He will redirect it back to you” Kyle reminded them as Cellica rushes forward with her silver rapier in hand. Aleena wanted to ask why how he knows this but seeing that everyone didn’t question him, she shrugged and charges forward.

This continued for a minute of everyone attacking at Exael only for it to be misdirected away from him. Suddenly, the small portals floating around Exael that keep on absorbing the attacks changed color from violet to red.

“Get away!” Kyle shouted as everyone stopped attacking and quickly retreats as Exael wraps his arms around him before opening them as a large radius circling him was obliterated and destroyed followed by a loud bang. It seems that every attack they did would rebound back to them as before they can charge again, Exael already vanished. Kyle wanted to shout something but he coughs violet blood from his mouth as he falls to his knees and his forehead is covered with sweat. He felt sleepy and he’s slowly losing unconsciousness.

In that instant, he foresaw his death with Exael’s arms ripping his ribs open and exploding it from inside out. Every second started to slow down as he can see Exael slowly emerging behind him. His mind goes overdrive thinking for a solution.

“Chaos Magic: Temporal Body” he muttered as Exael’s arms pass through his chest like he was just a hologram. With that, he quickly loses consciousness as he drops to the ground. Exael was about to attack again only to be blocked by both Alrich and Isaac. Alrich’s scaled arms blocked his mangled poisonous claws while Isaac’s katana slashes forward aimed at Exael’s neck. The undead weakens its attack to misdirect the katana but Isaac didn’t slow down and continued on slashing random parts of the undead. While Isaac’s eyes of truth activated to reveal a status screen in front of him.

[Exael Pendral] (Undead) (Weakened)

Strongest stat: Intelligence (A+) -> (D-)

Weakest stat: Strength (A-) -> (A+)

Strongest spell: Void of the End (Unusable)

Strongest Skill: Void Enforce (Broken)

Weakness: After turning to undead, the physical body would be weak to holy, light, divine magic spells and weapons coated with divine spells. Gains double damage to fire attacks but only takes half damage to weapons.

“Does any of you have light, holy, or any divine magic spells? Even a fireball would be useful” Isaac shouted towards the others who were shocked to see Kyle slumped to the floor. In that instant, Alrich opens his mouth before breathing fire straight to the undead as it screams in pain and writhes in pain. Seeing the opportunity, Alenna charges in.

“I’ll finish this” Alenna declared as she gazes at the burning undead. She breaths in and out before suddenly vanishing.

“Death’s sword art: Soul Destroyer” she shouted out of nowhere as a quick ripped in space opened up in between of the undead, slashing from on top of the head to the torso as the undead’s body crackled and cracked like glass before exploding. Thousand of Exael’s pieces, littered to the ground with no blood dripping from his corpse

“We should heal Kyle” she smiled as like nothing happened. Thinking that Exael was dead, they hurriedly checked on Kyle who is clearly having a hard time battling the poison.

Out of nowhere, a strange sound of something cracking its bone can be heard from where Exael’s body was destroyed. A spine-tingling scream alerted everyone as a large amalgamation of a beast and monster appeared. It’s like a fleshy slime with a head of wolves, wyvers, and different kinds of beast attached everywhere in its flabby body. Every beast scream in chaos like they were in pain with eyes full of madness. They stared at everyone as the slimy amalgamation of the beasts started sliding towards them.

The head of a wolf attempted to bite Alrich but he was able to dodge it and run while carrying Kyle in the back. Everyone retreated as they have no idea what this monstrosity is.

It was slow but it’s impossible to attack at close range since every head attached to it can stretch and attempt to bite their head off. With the lack of any blood, Isaac can’t use any range spells that he has while Melissa and Aleena don’t have any way of attacking from afar except for throwing stones.

“Leustruem elef yvoenn tras lof” Cellica muttered as her rapier turned to a bow. With a calm look on her face, she started barraging the creature with wind arrows created by her sacred bow. As Alrich can’t breathe out fire anymore, he decided to join Melissa and Aleena who are throwing large boulders that Melissa dug from the ground.

“Wind Magic: Guide of the Wind”

“Wind Magic: Spiritual Wind Arrow” her arms started moving incredibly fast as the barrage of arrows turned to laser-like speed with every hit, puncturing the creature’s body. With the help of them throwing boulders, the creature has a harder time moving as Cellica capitalized on this. Still, this monstrosity has insane regenerative properties as everything Cellica destroys almost heals instantly.

While Isaac tried using his eyes again to see if the creature has any weakness, the short-sightedness and blurriness of his eyes are making it more difficult.

“Do you guys have any idea how to take this thing down?” Alrich shouted but no one responded as they don’t know how to deal with this monster. Tired from the endless barrage of magic arrows coming from Cellica, it created tens of tentacles made of flesh to use as a whip, destroying the boulders in front of it and slowly inching towards them. Now instead of the body being punctured by the magic arrows, the tentacles act as a shield to absorb all of the attacks. Seeing that nothing they do is stopping this thing, he decided to use the power of his blood. He slashes his palm with his own katana as it absorbs it viciously as violet blood coated the weapon. It shakes in excitement but Isaac didn’t mind it, with a sigh he glared at the monster itself.

“Forbidden Katana Art: Rapid Laceration” when he uttered those words, the world grew silent. The next was a loud and sharp whistling of his blade ripping through the air and slamming to the flesh of the monster. The monster that was moving around a second ago was split into six parts by this attack as the blood of his started rotting the slime until nothing remained. The vague screaming of the monster is the only thing he heard as he sees himself slowly falling to the ground. He gazed at his palm to realize that he created a wound that was too large and a lot of blood was spilled. He deactivated the rot effect of his blood as it turned to the normal color red. After that, same with Kyle. He loses consciousness.

The crackling of the fire and the sound of people chatting around him wake him up as he groggily stands up from his bed created with leaves and his head perched on a log. It was still dark so he figured he wasn’t asleep for long. He notices that his hand is wrapped with a green cloth where he wounded himself.

“You’re finally awake ‘prince’ ” Cellica glared at him with a tone full of irritation. He noticed that a piece of her cloak was ripped as he feels thankful. He might be cold and aloof but he’s appreciative if someone did a good deed for him.

“Thanks” he smiled but Cellica just silently glared at him without replying. Alrich walks towards Isaac with concern covering his face.

“A-are you alright?” he asked

“I’m fine, how about the others?” He asked back

“Kyle is still unconscious with a high fever while Aleena’s arm is currently broken” his tone is crestfallen and sadness can be seen on his face.

“So what happened after i lose consciousness?”

“I carried Kyle while Cellica carried or rather dragged you while Melissa helped Aleena since both of her arms are nearly broken” he replied

“After that, we moved deeper to the forest only to be attacked by monsters each hour. We decided to camp here temporarily but everyone is tired and hungry.” Alrich sighs while gazing at both Cellica and Melissa with dirtied cloaks and their faces covered with scratches and mud. They sat beside the fire while staring at it mindlessly. Fatigue is clearly seen on their faces.

“I see…first of all, we need to heal Kyle since he is the only one that can open his storage full of food and other essential needs,” Isaac said before moving near to Kyle who’s sleeping on a ground only covered with leaves from random trees. He shivered with every gust of the wind, his face was red and a continued heaving for air followed.

“Do you have any ideas?” Alrich asked

“Bring me where the carcasses are” Isaac replied with the hope of using his blood mist to heal Kyle. Isaac has no idea if it works but he’s willing to bet everything on this. If Kyle wakes up, almost all their problems would be solved.

While being lead by Alrich, Isaac just realizes how useful Kyle is and how important he is to everyone near him. It seems that he has been relying on Kyle for too long and too much but it’s not the time to think about it as his eyes glowed with determination as unknowingly, a shadowed figure in an unknown location is absolutely livid at his plan being destroyed.